Willem Gobrecht is known as "that spoiled European bastard." In a way, that was true. He was well over fifty, he was raised rich, he acquired an enormous income, had three wives, divorced twice, had dozens of affairs, and loved women. His third wife is everything to him. He worships the ground she walks and, and pampers their kids. Then everthing is lost when they dissapear into thin air. He suspect that she had run off with another man, that God was punishing him for his adultries. Drowining in his sorrows, he reluctantly hires a cynical and sarcastic Chicago reporter to snoop around to raise his family from the abyss back to his presence.